Palestinian President to deliver keynote speech at UNGA

Ramallah, Sep 18 (IANS)   An official said, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will deliver an "extremely important" speech at the UN General Assembly next Wednesday.

Palestinian Presidential Spokesperson Nabil Abu Rdineh on Sunday said the speech of President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly, scheduled next Wednesday, will be "extremely important", Xinhua news agency reported.

Abu Rdineh said Abbas will emphasize the need for the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

He stressed that the official position of Abbas and the Palestinian leadership rejects interim resolutions "nor a state in Gaza Strip without the West Bank or East Jerusalem," and that the leadership will only accept "an independent and sovereign state on the borders of 1967".

Abbas is also scheduled to meet with US President Donald Trump to discuss the outlook of the US efforts in the Middle East," the official news agency WAFA said.

The last round of peace talks between Palestine and Israel stopped in 2014, after nine months of US sponsored talks that achieved no major breakthrough, with differences mainly focused on Israeli settlement activity.